


Scent of Lavender

by gomushroom



Series: Rainy November [1]
Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-10-12 02:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10480179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gomushroom/pseuds/gomushroom
Summary: Ohno goes to Matsumoto’s dry-cleaning shop and falls in love





	

**Author's Note:**

> Also written for rainbowfilling prompt, Jun/Ohno free square. Here’s to celebrating November! Satoshi Ohno, happy birthday ♥!

The directions he received from his sister have been detailed and precise, and now Ohno is standing in front of the laundry shop. He would’ve missed it if he weren’t looking. He vaguely remembers the one or two times he’d veered from the main street and strolled into the same alley, but there’s no way he would’ve notice the shop in the first pass—very subtle and unassuming.

Then, his eyes find a small chic sign is up on the corner right. It is nothing much below but a large window with pale blue color with a trace of mauve background. People could’ve easily mistaken the shop for a clothing shop or a café if it weren’t for the large sans-serif script of _MJ Dry-Cleaning Shop_.

Ohno doesn’t do any double take, heading straight to the door. He has two suits to deal with—and it’d be better to deal with it soon, he still needs to do his weekly grocery. He clutches his laundry bag on his side firmer and then goes to enter the shop.

A bell rings softly and then a distant low voice welcomes him. “Welcome. I’ll be right with you in a minute.”

Ohno finds himself standing inside the shop. The space is smaller than he’s expected but the air conditioner welcomes him all together. Looking around, he finds no available chair so he stands still in the middle of the narrow space. Rows of shirts and suits in plastics are lined neatly at the back of the counter. A register and a stack of papers are the only things visible on the counter. Everything is in pastel colors that Ohno couldn’t help to wince uncomfortably. Yet there’s no mistake on the scent of soft lavender, floating inside the shop. His senses has already getting the hint when he arrived in front of the shop, in the cool autumn air, actually alluring people to take a deep breath, felt calmed and knowing that there’s nothing to worry about, even for a split second, that you are in a lavender field, surrounded by gentle scent. But once he steps inside the shop, the scent grows stronger and eventually calming him from the pastel onslaught.

The voice keeps him waiting for another minute before materializing as a man, a gorgeous man, Ohno must say, with a wide smile that sends him speechless—not that he has something to say in the first place, but the moment their eyes meet Ohno loses his breath.

The man walks toward the counter, sidestepping something on the floor, and stops just slightly in front of Ohno, with his hands clutched in front of him. “Welcome.”

Ohno nods his greeting and blinks at the sight of the man. Gorgeous might be a perfect way to describe him; the man’s face is shining with light sweat—it must be horrible hot back in the shop, where Ohno suspects are the place where all the magic happens—and the sleeves of his shirt is rolled up to his elbow—showing that the man was actively working before he meets Ohno in the front of the shop. The man also clips his bangs back to keep those wild locks from falling to his forehead, emphasizing his sharp feature with clear warm eyes and full lips.

“I—“ Ohno begins.

“Yes?” the man prompts him. “Can I help you?”

“I have these—,“ Ohno says, pointing to the laundry bag slung in his shoulder, “—suit jackets I need to dry-clean.”

“I see.” The man shifts to get a small form and a pen from the case beside the register. “Can I see them first?”

Ohno takes one step closer to the counter and hands the man the bag. The man receives it and begins to take Ohno’s suit jackets out of the bag. He thoroughly checks each of the pockets on the first jacket and Ohno just stands there watching the man’s deft hands and long fingers touching his suit jacket, rubbing on the fabric, and smoothening the notched lapel.

“It’s only going to be these two jackets?” The man asks.

“Yes,” Ohno replies. He continues to watch as the man finishes checking his first suit. He doesn’t stop himself from tiptoeing to watch the man bending down to get a small basket. Who’s to blame really? It was there in front of him and checking the man’s butt seems to be the only thing to do—he was waiting after all and the gorgeous man doesn’t seem to mind, judging from the way he bends flexibly in an instant.

Ohno tries to school his face as the man straightens himself and sets the basket next to him on the counter. He continues his work by putting the first suit in the basket before moving on to the last suit. He stops for a while, lifting his gaze to catch Ohno’s intense stare on him. Ohno is about to look down, averting the gaze—it does feel like he was caught staring, but then again, who’s to blame, really—when the man flashes another smile to him. It was only a fleeting moment, since the man then goes back to checking his suit, but Ohno feels strong warm flushes running up his face and pleasant flutters of butterflies in his chest.

And from then, all runs in slow motion.

Ohno’s eyes intently follow the movements of the man’s fingers running through his suit inner pockets, left, then right, before flipping the jacket and going through the outer jetted ones. He is so transfixed on the movement of the fingers, that he could only blinks when the man pulls out a folder paper from one of the pockets.

“Oh. I think you forgot about this,” the man says. His fingers are holding out the paper for Ohno to take.

Ohno shakes his head softly. “Ah. I think that’s just a receipt or something. I don’t need it.”

“Very well,” the man says, flipping the fold open just to check and receiving a pleasant surprise. “Oh. Wow. Is this yours?”

Ohno cranes his neck forward to see what it was on the paper. He doesn’t really remember putting any important paper in his jacket’s pocket. But the man then holds the paper for Ohno to see and he couldn’t hold his grin.

It was one of his trifling doodles, and from the look of the paper, he drew this one a quite long time ago. The basic form is a man with a suit but Ohno has distorted the main feature of the man with large trucker hat and over-the-top boots. The man on the drawing has both his hand on his waist, trying to give out the air of seriousness but it is hard to take the picture seriously because the first thing that catches the eyes is the comical pouting lips.

Ohno lets out another chuckle when he recognized that this one was the one he drew at one of his family formal gathering, that was, what, almost a year ago; he was extremely bored and ended up borrowing a pen from a waiter and sat on the far back table, ignoring the rest of the party and immersing himself on the doodle. He must have put the paper on his suit jacket and forgot all about it when he got home. And now it was rather amusing to meet this paper again—it even has his short signature on the bottom, meaning that he once thought he was done with the doodle.

“Ah, yeah. That’s mine,” Ohno finally says.

“Here you go then,” the man says, once again holding the paper out for Ohno to take.

Deciding on that moment, Ohno holds out his hand to refuse. “I don’t need that. You can throw that away.”

“But this is good.” The man then takes a moment to look closely to the piece of paper and comments more. “This is _very_ good.”

Ohno couldn’t think of anything else to say but, “Thank you.”

“Are you sure you don’t want this?”

“I’m sure.”

The man gives the paper another close look before he looks up to Ohno expectantly. “Do you mind if I keep this?”

“What?”

“If you don’t mind that is,” the man quickly tries to explain his reason. “If you do mind, I could throw this away but it’s very good and I don’t like this to go to waste.”

Ohno doesn’t know anything else to say but he tries. “You can do anything you want with it.

“I’m going to keep it then.” The man grins brightly at Ohno and sets the paper aside once again, but this time with more care on top of his stack of papers.

Ohno nearly sighs in what he could only recognize as joy. This man, this gorgeous man, wants to keep his silly doodle and sets them aside with such care. And he doesn’t usually act on impulse but he wants nothing but so right now. This is probably the only chance he is getting—bless his sister to the moon and back, and he’s going to use it. “If you want, I could draw you another next time.”

“Really? Why thank you.” The man’s expression brightens a notch, distracted from his attempt to finish checking Ohno’s jacket. “And could ‘next time’ also means that this wouldn’t be your last time using our service?”

“I suppose so.”

“I’m going put extra care on this jacket so we can make sure you are satisfied with our service then,” the man says, before adding, “not that we don’t put care into other order, but. You know what I mean, right?”

Ohno nods and feels a little bit better. He isn’t the only one who’s stuttering and perhaps, if time permits later, he could keep on coming back and get to know this man more. At the moment, ‘perhaps’ is good enough for him.

It then comes down to only one pocket left to check, and Ohno feels like the show is about to end when he still yearns for more action.

“Two suit jackets. It would take three days for the service.” the man says as he puts the second jacket on the basket. “Let me write you a receipt.”

“Okay.”

“I would need your name and phone number. You can write it down here. The man writes down the details of the jacket on the receipt before he looks up to meet Ohno’s eyes. “It’d be 2850 yen, including tax.”

Ohno takes the final approaching step to the counter and receives a pen from the man. Their fingers don’t brush, like he has been expecting, but now he is in such close proximity with the man, it hardly matters. He writes down his name and phone number and slides the paper back toward the man along with few of thousand yen bills. “Are you open on Sunday?”

“I’m truly sorry but we’re closed on Sunday,” the man says. He rings the register and “Perhaps Monday morning? We’re open at 10 AM, but if you need the suit earlier, you can come by and have your jackets picked up before our open hour.”

“Is Monday night okay?”

“We’re closed at 11 PM. Any time before that is completely fine.”

Ohno makes a brief calculation and then makes a decision. “I’ll pick these up on Monday then. Around 9 PM?”

“Very well. I’ll be waiting then,” the man says as he makes additional notes on the receipt and skims Ohno’s handwriting. “Ohno-san.”

Ohno blinks at the mention of his name coming out of the man’s lips before a shy smile blooms on his face.

Their gazes meet once again, as the man hands Ohno the receipt. Ohno wants the moment to run on slow motion so he lifts his hand to receive the paper slowly, taking the time to hold the other end of the paper, and keeping his eyes staring straight into the man’s. The man merely raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment on Ohno’s slow movement. He keeps the receipt hanging between them, waiting patiently for Ohno to have a good hold before letting go.

“Your receipt,” the man finally says.

Ohno has no choice but to end the moment, accepting the receipt and folding it carefully before putting into his pocket. Anything that hasn’t been said could wait till next time. The man acknowledges the possibility of next time after all, Ohno assures himself. There will be ‘next time’ for sure. Ohno then takes a step back and nods. “Thank you.”

“Thank _you_ ,” the man replies with a deep bow, and looks up with a warm smile. “I’ll look forward for your next visit.”

“I’ll see you Monday,” Ohno says. It’s a promise; one he fully intends to keep. He turns around and exits the shop with light steps, trying to not look back immediately because he might find the man is still watching him from behind the counter.

Ohno only allows himself to stop when he reaches the end of the alley. He finally turns to see the small chic sign of the shop. It is really there on the top of the display window so what just happened in the last 30 minutes wasn’t something out of his imagination. Or he could check something very quick right this minute, just to confirm one or two things. He takes the receipt out of his pocket and finally takes a close look on it. In addition to his name and phone number, the description, color and model, of his jackets, there’s only one short signature right next to the date and month. What seems like _J Matsumoto_ is scribbled on the bottom of the receipt.

In spite of the autumn wind, Ohno feels warmth spreads through his face, just as the knowledge of that he could now put a name to the gorgeous man behind the counter. Matsumoto, he tries to pronounce the name in his head. He allows himself to let out a small giddy chuckle, right there on the end of the alley before turning to walk to further south.

As he walks, Ohno smiles dreamily. He reminds himself that he now has a couple of days to plan, or to seek another dirty suit jacket, or other of his forgotten clothes burrowed under the depth of his small closet that needs dry cleaning. Or, better yet, to draw another drawing. Not necessary a doodle, but something a little bit more serious. If canvas is a bit too much, he could start drawing on a piece of paper. Maybe another character, or perhaps, dare he dreams about it, one day he could draw Matsumoto.

Matsumoto will be in that shop, along with the comforting soft lavender scent, on Monday. They could have another conversation, preferably longer. Ohno could see the polite smile blooms into a bright grin over a silly doodle of his. He could once again, if he dares to hope, experience the giddy flutters in his chest. Those very thoughts send Ohno into a full run, with a full-blown smile across his face, into the cold afternoon breeze. Monday is just a few days away; he has a lot of planning to do.


End file.
